Lightroom 2.0 will not export to Photoshop CS3

GNP -
It has already been noted by the Adobe team that there is a variety of characters that cause this problem. Which is why in a previous posts I (and others) suggested using a-z A-Z 0-9 only in file and folder names.
I know you should not have to do this but I think Kevin from Adobe has said they have identified the source of this particular problem. He has not said (as far as I know) when the fix will be available to us.

Frank -
You've made the same assumption I did when I first had these issues. LR2 does not ask about editing files in the same way as LR1. If it's a RAW or DNG file it goes to CS3 with no questions asked (see help).
The issue with them not showing in the library after edit is a bit of a grey area. The help files apparently say (I've not checked) that under certain editing circumstances the files will not be re-imported back to the catalogue. See help for details.
There is also a bug (again) that prevents files from re-importing properly. For more details on this read back through this thread.

I currently have a more serious issue where my trial period of LR2 is about to expire and Adobe have not shipped my boxed version yet. I'm gonna be properly up the creek if they don't pull their finger out.

Well that's the way I understand things anyway. But then I don't work for Adobe so what do I know!?

It is not the case that the export problem only occurs with an apostrophe, or with photos stored in the default "my documents" subfolder location.

I keep my photos on a separate drive (happens to be a series of folders within D:, but the details do not matter). The 10.0.1 upgrade was previously installed.

Over the weekend, I created a new folder within this structure, from within LR2, which I called "xxx & yyy wedding", and imported the photos. No apostrophe, but the same export problem. I then changed the name of the folder to "xxx and yyy wedding" (i.e. simply replaced the ampersand by the word and), and export worked fine.

So it looks as if there is a similar problem with other non-alphanumeric characters.

But it is not necessarily all non-alphanumeric characters which are a problem - my root folder for my photos in my D: drive is called @Images (so called simply to keep it at the top of the folder list order in Explorer), so all my images are in a sub-folder of this - thus clearly having a parent folder with @ in the name does not of itself cause the problem (at least for me). I do not have time to check whether or not, in order to cause a problem, the non-alphanumeric character needs to be in the folder which contains the file to be exported, or whether it is also caused by it being higher up the folder tree structure, but I hope Adobe will check this as well when they issue the fix.

Hope this helps.

I have had a successful install of LR2. However, when I try to edit externally in CS3, I do not see/cannot find the CS3 edited photo in LR! Additionally, the screen (that I had in LR1) that asks if I want to edit a copy with LightRoom adjustments does not appear, either.
I am dead in the water. HELP!

John

In developer world its like this.

Fix something here. Break somehing there.
While you are right; at some point it will be addressed I am sure.

Can you say 2.1 ?? with other fixes all wrapped up into one code update.

The thing is...if defining Photoshop CS3 as a secondary editor works without any of the issues...shouldn't it be a fairly simply fix to get it to just work as the primary editor as well? I'm not a programmer, so maybe I'm being overly simplistic...but if the code is correct in one area of the program, shouldn't it be a simple matter to get it just as correct in another?

I tried the suggestion of defining Photoshop CS3 as a secondary editor. Using the secondary editor definition, the edited files end up in the right directory and no ghost directory is created. The images are stacked as expected.

Certainly the LR primary editor should work as described, but the secondary editor approach seems to be working for me.

I read with amazement about the length's people go to to find workarounds to resolve issues that Adobe should be addressing. A hyphen, apostrophe or any other character in the path name should not be an issue for the software.

I don't mind re-applying a patch, a registry tweak but I refuse to alter my system i.e. change path name's, create a new user in lower case and God knows what not you people come up with. We've all paid good money for software that clearly isn't working correctly.

This is Adobe's problem, not ours to resolve. We can help them pinpoint the problem but it is not our task to come up with workarounds. They need to fix the software and make it work with whatever "normal" configuration users might have. LR 1.4 never had a problem with apostrophes... Mind you, I do remember that somewhere in version 1, Lightroom didn't like certain date formats it created during import.

I happen to have an apostrophe in my pathname which has never been a problem before. If I remove this, I would have to reimport all my photos and render all the 1:1 previews which would take days and effectively would render my system unworkable due to the continuous disk activity. Besides, reimporting would import all my adjustments but what about the numerous catalogues? I don't know whether they are part of the xmp file or part of the db. In the latter case, I would lose them. And even if I did remove the apostrophe and reimport, I'd end up with the ghost folder problem (which would require removing the ghost folder and re syncing). This is just an unworkable situation. I need to get work done, not having to correct Adobe's software problems.

Jim,

I agree with you - if the scripting plugin is showing the correct version number then I can't see how you would need to install it again. I installed it from scratch with a brand new OS install and all apps including ccs3 with the automated 10.0.1 update and lr2 as correctly installed, and still the ghosting issue. I have no apostrophes or dots in my image paths either. In fact I just tried it with a brand new directory C:\test (can't get a simpler directory than that!) and I created a new catalog, copying a couple of cr2 files into that folder manually then importing them into the new catalog. I even tried switching to 8 bit export in preferences and still the ghost drive appears in LR once the images is saved in PS. Again the ghost drive with the edited image is c: and the original C: (upper case).

In any case, what Peter is suggesting here is a work-around, NOT a fix! A fix would apply to everyone with this issue, and would not limit a user to having to create a lowercase user in the OS, and follow all the other crazy inexplicable steps. I thought the username suggestion might be something to do with the path of the windows XP user profile, making sure it turns out as lower case, but the base user profile path in XP contains Upper and lower case letters in aby case (C:\Documents and Settings\...) so this can't be the reason. I know my user profile path as created by Vista is all in upper case, and it does contain a . in the path as I am logging in from a Windows 2003 domain so I get C:\Users\domain.USERNAME, so this is unavoidable, but I don't store images here so shouldn't be a problem. The path where my images are stored does not contain any of the aforementioned problem characters, as was also the case with my test directory above. I just hope Adobe are spending adequate effort in trying to solve this one, as in nearly every other respect the LR2 product is a real winner. Having these new PS integrations working would be the icing on the cake!

Paul A

Jim, maybe I can help a little as I've also had and solved this problem.

The apostrophe in file names or file paths are recognised by Adobe LR team as causing problems. However, I would assume that one would only get the problem if one had an apostrophe in the user name *and* you stored your photos in the default Windows location of within My Documents.
Basically if your file names and full folder path to the file only use letters (standard ASCII, not unicode) and numbers and spaces you should be fine. Problems seem to happen when characters outside the basic 0-9 and a-z A-Z are used.
Note: changing your existing account name in Windows XP does not alter the folder names, only the logon info and labels. So easiest solution is to create a new account and import settings to it. Or locate your photos elsewhere.

Still leaves me and many others with the 'ghost folder' in LR after and edit in PS. No fix for that yet (as far as I know), just a workaround.

Hope this helps.

Peter - thanks for your post. Could I request a few clarifications, though.

Assuming the 10.0.1's are applied correctly and that the Scripting plug-in also shows the correct 10.0.1 version number, is it necessary to go through the re-application and re-boot ? By re-booting and re-applying, what are you trying to accomplish.

What is the purpose of creating an account with lower-case letters ?

Surely you will not operate from that account ? I already have, for example, a rich operating environment under my existing account and moving all that to a new account or even just operating PS3/LR from the new account is not viable.

How is point 5 connected to point 4

Is this solution sanctioned by the LR team ? I note you have thanked Kevin - but I haven't seen a recent post from him regarding this. He actually hasn't posted since August 6th. If this is sanctioned, is there an engineering note covering it or notification of a pending point-release to address it properly ?

jc